


Shattered

by zombified_queer



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (which should be its own tag imo), Home Improvement, Introspection, M/M, Purple Prose, The Lecter Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 18:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16373171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/pseuds/zombified_queer
Summary: And when Hannibal returned to the family home, he found Will had left him a gift.





	Shattered

Hannibal returns to the family home alone. It's not the way he'd anticipated events playing out, but he's content to know Will is safe at home in Wolf Trap. That matters more too him, in the end, that Will is still warm and breathing than if he had chained Will to his side.

Still, the loneliness aches terribly, settling in his chest like the icy weight of a bullet or a blade.

Hannibal ignores it by throwing himself headlong into the restoration project. It's so much work he can hardly fixate on Will's absence, the charming smiles, the ill-fitting clothes, the glasses that make Will seem all at once very helpless and very thoughtful. Instead, Hannibal turns his obsession to the ruins of the family home, fixating on every last detail and how to go about making it the glorious manor it once was, an estate worthy of the Lecter name again, a place to invite debutantes and heiresses, opera singers and models. Here, he wants to curate a circle of good taste again, missing so terribly the ingredients to a successful social life. 

Most of the old manor is inhospitable, much to Hannibal's dismay as he walks up to the old manor. It's the first time he's been back in years. The east wing he remembers so fondly from his youth is completely collapsed, strained too hard for too long under its own weight, taking the old library with it. The garden has gone wild with weeds, the trees all dormant this early into autumn, green things sprawling out across what used to be beautiful and pristine, carefully tended grasses and shrubs. Those things need to be slaughtered with uprooting, put down with careful application of herbicides. 

The entryway is still standing and the large doors that lead into the manor will suffice to create an austere aura, one of culture. The kitchen is large enough for entertaining guests and keeping it separated from the dining room is ideal for Hannibal's needs. With some updating of the fixtures to bring it into this century, it will be perfect, a dream he's kept in the back of his mind, though this time he has plans to support it. Stepping into the dining room, he pauses, breathes deep breaths, the air cold and fresh in his lungs from the broken windows. He considers the ornate chandelier in the dining room for a long while, considering how best to pay it due respects with ornate silk tablecloths or whether it's best to do away with the thing completely since it is so old and bordering on garish, watching it sway in a stray breeze, glass tinkling soft whispers he can't quite decipher. 

Ascending to the second level, he considers the dark hardwood of the halls, where it is not rotted away, is lovely, giving the home depth and warmth and he wants to compliment it accordingly.   
He plans how best to paint the master bedroom, which sheets will bring it to a sort of quiet liveliness. He considers how large and wide the four-poster bed will be without someone to share it with, how cold the silk will be without another body beside him. He sighs, pushing those thoughts back from his mind.

There's much work to be done if ever the house is to be a home again.

Hannibal descends to the underground, the scent of decay cloying with every step. He'd thought about making it a wine cellar but now he's having second thoughts. He pulls the lighter from his breast pocket, flicking it to life with one hand while the other pulls his handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it over his mouth and nose. 

His steps are loud, too loud on the stone steps. The whole of the underground is damp and cold, making Hannibal all the more grateful for the lighter, the delicate flame casting dancing shadows on the walls. 

The body he finds has him smiling under his makeshift mask.

The flesh is bent, skin split with compliance into shape, peeled back here and there to form, organs rearranged so thoughtfully, almost lovingly in its own violent way. The shape, Hannibal knows, mattered to much to the artist. It's a decided improvement from his work with Randall. Bones are broken to fit the design in mind, rope applied as if forming a trellis for things to grow instead of supporting the death, holding it so tightly in place it might break all over again under its own stress. But it continues to hold as Hannibal observes. The ground is stained with long-dried blood, staining the stone in deep tones of black and brown. Though the corpse of the man is putrid, making the whole place reek of rot, Hannibal finds it beautiful. How could he not?

It's a dragonfly, or most of one since the flesh is rotted to black in splotches and eaten away completely to yellow bone in others. There's much force in the design, leaving it crude in a way he recognizes.

"Will," he whispers.

His voice echoes back a hundred times and he looks around, almost self-conscious. Almost as if he expects his voice to be answered. But there is just him, the corpse, and the shadows in the stone room under the house.

A single tear rolls down his cheek, freezing his skin, as his chest aches as though he's been shot. He admires the work just a bit longer, that delicate flame dancing against the silver of his lighter as he lingers on the dragonfly, that small present partially preserved under his house. Only when the fluid runs out, leaving him in dark silence, does he move from where he's been standing and admiring that parting gift.

And then he ascends the stairs again, determined to dispose of the ephemeral work.

Perhaps, when the house is repaired and livable again, he'll call up an old friend for dinner.


End file.
